


A Late Night Lovers Quarrel

by CaptainNonsense



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Denial of Feelings, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, M/M, breakdowns, sassy agent washington, slight comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 19:00:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4533540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainNonsense/pseuds/CaptainNonsense
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being in extremely close quarters, partnered with, and spending a lot of time with a man you want to simultaneously punch and hug, (hey he looks like he really needs a hug, okay?), is messing with you. Some nights, you think that doing a little more than hugging would be nice too...so what if you kind of really want to kiss him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Late Night Lovers Quarrel

**Author's Note:**

> My first fanfic! I'm not usually into writing fanfiction, but for some reason this idea popped into my head, and I needed to write it down! ^_^

Being part of the army of Chorus, you hate the moment the sun rises, because that meant drills, and chores, and other soldierly responsibilities that came with the promise you made these people. You also hate the moment the sun sets, because that means sleep. Not to be mistaken, you love sleep, it has the same value as weapons and food rations around here. It’s just it was so hard to come by sometimes. 

Think about it, you are in close quarters with people you aren’t particularly chummy with, except for the Reds. Over time you've come to love those assholes, but you'd never admit that out loud. The army is in pretty poor shape, and they were all waiting around for some Merc dicks to show up and kill them. To top it off you have a unit you're expected to train, and an increasingly awkward relationship with none other than Agent Washington. 

So yeah, even despite the continuous pissing contests, and the fact that both sides of the newly joined army would love to kill each other, you can't complain much. Its not much different from how you and Church were back at Blood Gulch...except on a larger scale. A night passing without a very loud Caboose barreling down the halls, or an argument over which "side" of the army is better rarely passes. It seems like there is always a constant source of noise, among other things, you can use as your excuse to deny what's really keeping you up. 

When you and the rest of the sim troopers were bunked, it was decided it was probably best to keep you guys together. You dreaded the thought of getting Caboose as a partner- or worse Donut. To your relief you were assigned with Wash. At first you couldn’t believe your good luck, and then you couldn’t believe your bad luck. 

You bitch and moan about the other soldiers and how the army has problems, and you can pretend you don’t like them much. You can also pretend like you don't have shit to deal with yourself. You can try to tack the lack of sleep to stress of actually having the lives of others in your hands, or to the fact that, like clockwork, you can count on the anonymous nightly shenanigans to wake the base up. But really, it’s your fault, or maybe Wash’s? Probably both.

Being in extremely close quarters, partnered with, and spending a lot of time with a man you want to simultaneously punch and hug, (Hey, he looks like he really needs a hug, okay?), is messing with you. Some nights, you think that doing a little more than hugging would be nice too. So what if you kind of really want to kiss him? 

Its the man laying across from you in a crappy twin bed, every night, that keeps you awake. It's Wash. It always has been. Deep down you know it's true, and you are painfully aware of it, but you still lay awake losing valuable sleep staring at the ceiling thinking about him. On many occasions you catch yourself wondering if there was even a sliver of a possibility for slightly more between you guys. You try to push it out of mind, because having school-girl crushes doesn't win you a war, and you don't even know what you mean to Wash. So why does it matter anyway? 

Tonight he hasn’t come back yet, and it’s getting late. It's nothing out of the ordinary, he's always out late drilling or providing any help and skills an ex-freelancer can provide, but tonight is an especially lonely one, and you wish he was here.

Another hour and a half passes, and you start to doze off. The noise from the automated door opening wakes you up. You try to be discreet as you peek through your thin sheets watching Wash enter the room. 

With the unflattering hallway light silhouetting him at the door, you realize he looks like he’s been to hell and back. His eyes red and swollen, and under them long dark shadows that’s a tell-tale sign of his usual sleeplessness. He looks pale, or well paler than usual. His hair wet and plastered to his forehead, and with him he brings the smell of soap that is stocked in the communal showers.

Still pretending you’re asleep, you watch him climb into bed with a sigh. You turn back around, and listen to the normal night noises heard around this side of the base. For some reason it's silent. You chalk it up to being one of those rare silent nights. Instead you try to focus on the steady breathing from across the room. Or so you hoped.

You know Wash does everything in his power to hide any of his weaknesses. You’ve been with him long enough on Blue Team, and long enough in this room together to know that he doesn’t just easily go to bed with a sigh. You know when it’s this time of night, and no one’s stupid problems are distracting him, he has the time to think about all the fucked up things around here, and relive all the fucked up things that’s happened to him. You also know for a fact he spent the last hour and a half on the cold floor of the empty showers probably feeling panicked, overly stressed and tired.

So when you hoped there were sounds of steady breathing, coming from Wash, across the room to listen to, there was instead the muffled hiccups and sobs, and hitched raspy breathing directed into a pillow. You sigh to yourself, and remember one of the first nights Wash spent in Blue Base with you and Caboose. He woke both of you up with yelling in his sleep about past teammates, eventually it would just turn into cries for Allison. None of you would talk about it the next awkward morning. This would happen many more times in Blue Base, the crash site, and now in this room. Up until now you would let him deal with his own demons, but this night is different. 

You get up and stumble over to his bed in the dark. You can see his body hunched over a pillow and facing the wall. He senses you standing over him and immediately his breath evens; with a surprisingly even voice he says, “Would you like to enlighten me why you are standing over my bed, Private?”

Without thinking you say, “bullshit.” You have no idea what you even planned to accomplish coming over here, or more importantly what you were going to say. 

“Wish to say that again while running an extra seven laps tomorrow?”

This is the bullshit you were talking about. His attitude splitting you between wanting to hug him, and wanting to deck him. He’s just being stubborn because you caught him vulnerable. “Drop the tough guy act, Wash, you don’t need to hide it from me.” you say looking down at him.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” You say more confidently than you feel. If you were honest with yourself, you are actually terrified of invoking Washington's rage. This was going badly, your mouth had a mind of its own now, apparently. Great job comforting him, if anything you just got him mad.

He sits up and stares you down, “Twenty extra laps tomorrow, Private.”

“It’s captain now.”

“I’m sorry, Captain, twenty extra laps tomorrow. I suggest you get some sleep, you have a big day ahead of you.”

You don’t even know why you thought of doing this in the first place. You let out an exasperated sigh and try to keep your voice down, “Wash, why are you doing this?”

“Doing what Tucker? You’re the one who woke me up at-” he checks the clock on the wall of their room, “- one o’clock in the morning to tell me ‘bullshit’- literally!”

You let out an aggravated groan, "You always do this! Stop pretending like everything is fine! And bullshit you weren’t sleeping!” your voice begins to rise.

His cheeks fill with color, and his voice rises too,“Yeah, and should I be concerned you're watching me? Are you stalking me now, Captain Tucker? ” Wash enunciates 'captain' with the type of sarcasm that always drove you insane. 

“I'm just looking out for you, dude! Excuse me for wanting to make sure you we're fine. It's not like you are the shining star of amazing health!”

That got him really angry, his creeks and the bridge of his nose are now red, and he struggles not to full on shout, “Is that so? Last time I checked, the state of my mental health was fine!” 

"What? I didn't bring up anything about that!" You shout, and Wash goes deathly silent. You watch his face turn a darker shade of Red, and you regret bringing anything up. He pointedly looks away from you, and fidgets, "You wanna talk about that?" 

Still no answer. 

“Wash you’ve been doing this since Blue Base, don't you think it’s time someone helped?” You returned. You realize you have become part of the group of people you complain about under your mental check list of "fighting" and "being a loud asshole when everyone is trying to sleep". At the moment you couldn't really care less, this was more important, “You have friends here Wash! Let them- Let me help, damn it!” You hesitate on the word “friends”, because deep down, hidden, you want Wash to consider you more than a friend.

“And why do you suddenly have such an interest in me, Lavernius?” He suddenly spits back. 

“Because I care!” you shout throwing your arms up. The whole west wing of the base is now awake, no doubt.

“What?” was the quiet, delayed response.

“I care about you, Wash.” you whisper, “I care for you.”

He sits there still staring you down, looking up. The only crack in his stubborn expression is the slight creasing of his eyebrows, and the few stray tears from earlier roll down his burning cheeks.You stand there looking down at him, as he tries to keep his expression from crumbling. You sigh to yourself, and engulf the older in your arms. At first he goes completely rigid, but then slowly he melts into you. 

He balls the fabric at your shoulders as he cries an “I’m sorry” into your chest. 

You lean back into the wall the bed is on, and run your fingers through his hair, “I know. I am too.”

The two of you stay like that for awhile, you sitting and leaned against the wall, and him in your arms getting out all the shit he should have years ago. You figured all he needed was someone he knew who really cared. You don’t remember when, but sometime just before sunrise you wake up from your doze and realize Wash has finally fallen asleep. His grip on your shoulders slackened, and you hear the steady breathing from him you hoped for earlier. You lay him down, and look at him in the early morning light. He looks worse for wear. Eyes still red, and shadows under them still dark, but he looked more at peace now.

You try to slowly climb out of the cramped bed. He wakes up from the movement, and when he sleepily grabs your wrist he asks, “Do...you want to stay?”

You look back, and respond by climbing into the bed and pulling the sheets over both of you. Facing each other you look at him, and he looks back through heavy eyelids. Before you think about what you are actually doing, you lean in and kiss his forehead. 

He freezes, and the thought 'this was a bad idea' doesn’t have enough time to go through your mind when he leans forward and his lips find yours in the semi-darkness of the sheets. It’s quick, but leaves a want for more in your chest as it goes. He falls asleep, with his hands wrapped around your shoulders again. You can't help the light smile that brushes across your lips as you begin to feel your own eyes close.

******

The next morning Grif knew something was up when he didn’t see Tucker doing drills outside the kitchen window at breakfast. Tucker was always up at the crack of ass running laps that his dumb mouth won him with some stupid remark. He says it has a "mind of its own". 

When Grif, reluctantly, walked to the armory, he passed the empty training hall for the recruits. Not only was Wash able to train Tucker into the ground, but was able to train recruits at the same time. Today it was empty. He knew Wash would never neglect his job unless he was either dead or… Actually it would only ever happen if he was dead. That son of a bitch once trained Tucker when he had the flu. Every so often he would excuse himself to puke, then he would go back to being motivational and shit. 

Grif wasn’t bunked in the West wing with them. He and Simmons were on the opposite side. But he heard some crazy things that morning from the others about someone having a “lovers quarrel” at fucking 2am waking everyone up. He didn’t feel like checking in and out armor and weapons today anyway, he was going to see what was up. 

He stood outside their door. He hesitated, because what if Wash really was dead? He always said Tucker would be the death of him. Grif snorted “Nah”. The door swished open and he looked inside. He was about to yell “Are you assholes still alive in here?” when he saw them in the corner of the room in one bed sleeping. They were an entanglement of limbs threatening to either break or fall off the bed.

“Fucking finally!” he walked out, and the door closed behind him. He stopped for a moment and figured he would cover for them this once, oh but they were going to get so much shit for it later on. Sure, he and his unit had been betting when the tension between Wash and Tucker would break, but that doesn't mean he was going to let them live it down easily. That actually reminded him, Bitters now owes him a week's worth of dessert. How bad could it be if he told Sarge to train the recruits today? Hell, he might even consider helping if Simmons is there.


End file.
